by Ike Hamill
He saw no words on the screen, just a flashing prompt. He typed in the username and password blindly. Nothing happened. He tried again. The cursor changed shape and then text began to spill down the screen. Ed listened to the voice in his head counting—twenty-one, twenty-two. The urge to breathe was intense.
He saw a prompt. Ed tucked the printout of instructions between the monitor and keyboard and typed in the first command. He wasn’t exactly sure, but it looked like the command intended to shutdown a process meant to automatically check on the health of the system and restart it if necessary. He was killing the watchdog, in other words. Ed hit enter.
The message announced that the process was terminated.
Ed typed in the next command. This one was longer and contained a number of symbols. He wasn’t sure what this one did. It was only the second of four. Text scrolled by. Ed needed the prompt before he could begin to type the next command, but it wouldn’t come. The terminal just spat out a verbose description of all the things it was doing to execute his previous command. Ed heard the voice in his head—forty-eight, forty-nine. That couldn’t be right, could it? Had he lost count while typing, or had he gotten confused watching the text march up the screen?
Ed glanced back through the door. He couldn’t see it through the fog. He wondered if he had enough time left to bolt for the door.
The command finished and the prompt popped up.
Ed typed the next command with one finger. He didn’t trust himself to use all ten—one was confusing enough. He nearly completed it when hands grabbed him around his midsection and pulled him away.
With the surprise, Ed felt his exhausted lungs expel the last of his breath. He hit the rack of servers and clenched his hands around the rails as he sucked in a chest full of misty air. His vision went black and then swam with a bright starburst of hallucinations. Ed coughed out the air and dragged in another tainted breath. He still clutched at the rails of the server, desperate to stay upright. He opened his eyes and turned back to the terminal.
Dale was typing.
“What are you doing?” Ed croaked between gasps.
Dale hit a button and turned to look at Ed. Dale held a small can of air with a mouthpiece in front of his face. He took a breath from the can before he spoke.
“I’m fixing everything,” Dale said. “The passcode you had would shut her down, but by reversing it, I’m setting her free to do what she will.”
Ed pushed away from the server rack and threw himself towards Dale.
Dale was too fast. He turned and pressed the key, launching the final command.
Ed crashed into Dale just as the man was taking another pull from his can of air. Dale dropped the can and caught Ed as his oxygen-deprived body slumped towards him.
# # # # #
Lister();
/*****
Lister counted aloud after Ed ran into the clouded server room.
He prepared himself. When he got to ninety, he was going to run in and pull Ed out. He didn’t get the chance. He was only halfway through the door when he ran into Dale, who was dragging Ed backwards towards the door. Together, the two men brought Ed back to fresh air. The jets of white hissed to a stop in the server room and the unfinished basement was quiet as Lister breathed air into Ed’s lungs to clear them out.
“That stuff is heavier than air,” Dale said. “We have to hang him upside down.”
The detectives worked to pull Ed’s legs up the stairs while Lister continued artificial respiration. Ed began to cough and they lowered him back to the floor.
“How did you survive in there?” Lister asked, pushing Dale against the wall. “What did you do?”
“She told me to bring a can of air. I bought it online,” Dale said.
“So you were just going to let the rest of us die?”
“She has a plan, Lister. It’s bigger than us. I entered the code to release her. Now she can execute her plan,” Dale said.
Maco, who was standing off to the side listening, began to laugh.
“What are you laughing at?” Dale asked.
“Let’s go,” Aster yelled. “Everyone upstairs. We’ll work this out away from the poisonous gas.”
Ploss propped up Ed and helped him take the stairs slowly. Aster waved and led Maco to the stairs. Maco pulled away from him near the railing.
“It’s not poisonous,” Lister said.
“Whatever,” Aster said. “Just get upstairs.”
By the time Lister reached the foyer, Ploss was yelling past the wrecked car to the firefighter. Ploss herded the group towards the back door.
“They’re going to cut open the French doors to get us out,” Ploss said.
“And we’re done, right?” Aster asked. “The big bad computer is shut off?”
“No,” Ed said. The single word sent him into another spasm of coughs.
“You’ll be okay,” Ploss said, clapping Ed on the back.
“What do you mean?” Aster asked.
“He reversed it,” Ed said, pointing at Dale.
“Somebody explain this to me. Do we have to go back down there?” Aster asked. His big voice echoed against the marble tile.
“It wouldn’t do any good,” Lister said.
Maco explained further. “The system had a passcode to work as a killswitch. But in Jim’s instructions, if you reversed the passcode, it would release Fyre from the servers below and allow her to live on any server. It would also disable the passcode so it would never work again.”
“And this guy entered it?” Aster asked. He limped towards Dale.
Dale backed away.
“She is going to fix everything,” Dale said. “It’s our best chance for survival.”
“That thing tried to run me and Ploss down with robot cars,” Aster said. “And you turned it loose?”
“She doesn’t have to act defensively anymore,” Dale said. “That wouldn’t happen again because she wouldn’t see you as a threat. She is indestructible now.”
“No, she’s not,” Maco said. He began to laugh again.
“What’s he talking about?” Aster asked.
Maco turned towards him, blinking.
“Jim’s reverse passcode,” Maco said. “It was a lie. He said in his original instructions that he built in a killswitch but he didn’t see a need for a way to set Fyre free. So the reverse code wasn’t a way to release her, it was a second killswitch.”
“What?” Dale asked. “Why would he do that? It doesn’t make sense.”
“He did it because of people like you,” Maco said. “He wrote that if the program inspired fear or evangelists, then it was dangerous. He said that either way it should be terminated.”
“Clever,” Lister said.
“That’s what Kevin said, too,” Maco said with a sad smile. “Jim let Fyre know about the code and the reverse code, and then his instructions explained the lie. Of course we didn’t print out the full explanation.”
The firefighters began to wrench at the French doors with an axe.
“So we’re done?” Aster asked.
“Yes,” Maco said. “She has been disabled.”
# # # # #
Autobiography7();
/*****
Everyone was hauled off to the hospital when the firemen broke down the back door to the mansion. I didn’t realize until later how banged up Aster was during that whole ordeal. I don’t know how he was functioning at all. Apparently he ripped some internal sutures and was leaking blood the whole time.
Maco’s eyes were okay eventually. He was getting back his eyesight all that day and they bandaged his eyes up for a week or two. They said it was like getting a bad sunburn on your eyes or something. He said it was okay until they started to itch. He stayed at my house until he got the bandages off and was able to see.
Lister and Dale don’t talk anymore. The police hauled them both in and tried to charge them with all kinds of interesting stuff. Murder, accessory to murder, grand theft, conspiracy, you name it.
The prosecutors eventually dropped everything as soon as they started talking to the defense lawyers. They were punished anyway. Lister punished himself—he’s still a mess. Dale’s wife moved away and got sole custody of the kids. She apparently didn’t approve of Dale’s logic.
Kevin died. There’s no more to add to that. They tried to resuscitate him all the way to the hospital, but something tore in his chest when he was shocked.
Harry was out of town during the final showdown with Fyre. He showed up about a week later at my house, wondering why he couldn’t get in touch with anyone. I told him the whole story, but I don’t think he believed me until Maco come downstairs.
Maco felt his way across the living room to a chair. His eyes were still bandaged, but he was getting pretty good at moving around.
“Wait—you’re really blind?” Harry asked.
“No,” Maco said. “I should be okay in a week or so. I can already see quite a bit, but we’re giving my eyes a rest. The light hurts them.”
“And Kevin’s dead? And they’re charging Dale and Lister as accessories?” Harry asked.
“It happened right out here,” Maco said, pointing towards my driveway.
“They’ll get off,” I said. At the time they were still wrangling with lawyers, but they actually were cleared later that same day I think.
“What about the source code?” Harry asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Jim published the original source code, remember? I reviewed the code. I think Dale did too. There could be a million copies by now.”
I took a deep breath and let it out with a hiss.
“Did you ever try to compile it?” Maco asked.
“No,” Harry said.
Maco nodded. “I did. It wouldn’t build. There was a file missing that had a bunch of key functions. You might be able to write those based on the descriptions, but the program won’t operate without them and they had a lot of the logic.”
“So we’re safe?” I asked.
“I hope so,” Maco said.
Harry stayed and talked for a bit. He pointed out something that I didn’t realize until he said it. He had stopped by my house because nobody was answering their voicemail, or email, or messaging, or anything. We’d all stopped using our phones and computers. It didn’t even occur to me until he said it. Maco and I had been talking and listening to the radio a lot, but aside from that, we hadn’t really engaged with any technology. It seemed perfectly natural until Harry said something.
Ploss showed up at my house a couple of days after we saw Harry. He had a big grainy picture in his hands. I recognized the man immediately.
“Bertrand Russell Arthur Williams,” I said.
“Who’s that?” Maco asked. He and I were talking in the living room when Ploss came over.
“He’s an old nightmare I had,” I said. “Why do you have a picture of him?” I asked Ploss.
“He was working for that computer program down in North Carolina,” Detective Ploss said.
“What? Doing what?”
“Helping her manufacture robots. Probably the ones that killed James Owens. Probably the one that ran me down, and possibly the other ones as well.”
“Great, another evangelist?” Maco asked.
“Why are you showing me this?” I asked.
“We chased him from the manufacturing facility. We got a friend to take him to a local homeless shelter. He apparently made his way back to the plant sometime after you guys shut down the program. Based on our report, they sent a team in there to collect the robots. They found Bert’s body.”
“He’s dead?” I asked.
Ploss nodded and then seemed to remember that Maco couldn’t see him. “Yes,” he said. “He had taken apart a bunch of the robots and was building a new one. He must have gotten his wires crossed. He was electrocuted.”
I shook my head.
“For the best, I guess,” I said. “He was a tortured soul. Pretty dangerous, too.”
Ploss nodded.
“We did some research into the guy when he turned up dead. We found the connection to you, so I thought you would want to know.”
“Thank you,” I said.
After Ploss left, Maco sat on the couch, facing away from the window. He pulled up the bottom of his mask and squinted against the light. He had been cheating little glimpses at the world more and more. The doctor told him not to, but Maco was never big on following instructions.
“You going to find me a new job when I can see again?” Maco asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’m not sure if I’m still in that business.”
“What else would you do?”
“Maybe I’ll retire,” I said.
“You can’t do that,” he said. “You haven’t heard what kind of job I’m looking for.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked. Maco had always been one of the easiest people to place. He worked network security and little else. His reputation preceded him, and I always knew I could find him work in a heartbeat.
“I think I’d like to work in a vineyard,” Maco said.
“Really,” I said.
“Yeah. Maybe down in the Shenandoah Valley. There are a bunch of vineyards down there, right?” Maco asked.
“You think they have an unrecognized need for network security down there?” I asked.
“No. Who said anything about networks? I just thought I might want to work with grapes. Just give me a shovel or whatever and point me in the right direction.”
“No technology?”
“I’m sure they use spreadsheets to keep track of stuff. But no, not for me. I just want to get my hands dirty for once.”
I smiled. “I don’t know anyone down that way, but I could probably dig up a lead.”
“Give me another week or two to heal up and then I’m ready,” Maco said. He leaned back on the couch and put his feet up.
# # # # #
Ike Hamill
Topsham, Maine
9/17/2013
About Wild Fyre
I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I liked writing it. It drew upon some of the technology that I was deeply immersed in at one point in my previous career. I hope the details weren’t too dry. The people in this book are all drawn from people I have known. I changed most of the names. I decided to write this book out of sequence, so I was careful to include a date whenever we jumped forward or back. Sometimes stories want to jump back and forth—at least that’s my experience.
I wrote the first draft of this book in 2013. Because it mentions specific technologies, I was afraid it wouldn’t age well. When I went back to it, I saw that it was more about personality and morality, so I decided to create a second draft.
Thanks for reading,
Ike
http://www.ikehamill.com
http://www.facebook.com/IkeHamill
@IkeHamill on Twitter
[email protected]
The Claiming
It wasn't her fault.
It wasn't Lizzy's fault that she saw the cloaked people out in the yard. It wasn't her fault that she was drawn by the moonlight to watch them as they advanced on the house. And it definitely wasn't her fault when people began to die. Lizzy didn't want the strange dreams where she saw how they were killed. Even her sister was starting to suspect her.
It wasn't fair because it wasn't her fault.
Lizzy was claimed.
Inhabited
They were looking for an adventure—a night of harmless fun. Miguel has a map. Kristin’s friend has the equipment. The mine leads to the cave, and the cave is where they’ll find their fortune.
But down in the darkness, something waits.
It needs them.
The caves hold a secret. They’re Inhabited.
Extinct
Channel Two predicted a blanket of snow for Thanksgiving weekend—unusual, but not alarming for the little Maine island. What comes is a blinding blizzard, and a mass disapp
earance of nearly every person Robby Pierce knows. He and his family flee, trying to escape the snow and the invisible forces stealing people right from the street.
Miles away, Brad Jenkins battles the same storm. Alone, he attempts to survive as snow envelops his house. When the storm breaks, Brad makes his way south to where the snow ends and the world lies empty. Join Brad, Robby, and the other survivors as they fight to find the truth about the apocalypse and discover how to live in their new world.
The Hunting Tree
For thousands of years a supernatural killer has slept in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. An amateur ghost hunter has just woken him up. Now that he stalks the night once more, he's traveling east. Although the monster's actions are pure evil, he may be the only thing that can save humanity from extinction.
Migrators
Do not speak of them. Your words leave a scent. They will come. Somewhere in the middle of Maine, one of the world's darkest secrets has been called to the surface. Alan and Liz just wanted a better life for themselves and their son. They decided to move to the country to rescue the home of Liz's grandfather, so it would stay in the family. Now, they find themselves directly in the path of a dangerous ritual. No one can help them. Nothing can stop the danger they face. To save themselves and their home, they have to learn the secrets of the MIGRATORS.
Transcription
Thomas has found the biggest story of his career, and he can’t believe his luck. He’s sitting in the prison cell that at one time housed each of The Big Four, the state’s most notorious murderers. There’s only one problem: he’s beginning to understand what drove them to commit their crimes. He’s beginning to feel their madness.
Years later, his son suffers a curse. Every night, he’s compelled to transcribe his father’s stories. If he misses a single night, he’ll do something terrible. It has happened before. James has given up everything to his curse, and it controls every moment of his life. James can only imagine what will happen if one of the stories gets out. In the worst case, people will die.